Today’s spotlighted TAC article is “Rand Plan,” in which W. James Antle III argues that Rand Paul — for all the criticism he’s received from antiwar conservatives and libertarians — may be the one person who can turn the tea parties antiwar, by making the argument to which the grassroots protesters are most likely to listen: we cannot afford these continuing conflicts.

The Republican base may not include very many philosophical non-interventionists or committed peaceniks, but there are plenty of “to hell with them hawks,” who may believe in punitive wars but don’t have much tolerance for prolonged nation-building adventures. Reaching these Americans is crucial to blunting the neocon agenda — they were with Pat Buchanan in the 1990s, will they listen to gravitate to Rand Paul today?

Also new at TAC, courtesy of our friends at TomDispatch.com, is William J. Astore’s essay on the overflowing sources of militarism and what we can do to cap them. And don’t miss yesterday’s spotlighted article from our August issue, Chase Madar’s report on how Obama has turned Guantanamo Bay from a single place into a state of mind.

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